Rendering frames with Animation(rendering)

[tricky]

Apologies if this has been asked, but I am using the 'Animation (prepass)' to render the IRmaps for the animation and now I am setting the frames rendering using 'Animation (render)'. Which irmap do I select? The one labeled 'prepass_0000.vrmap'?

(I guess my main problem is I want to send the frames as a network render job with a job dependancy on the prepass job, so at that point I need to pick the correct Irmap)

[Morne]

I think you can select any of them as it should pick it up as a sequence and merge them anycase - I think but not 100% sure

[tricky]

Vlado - any info on this?

My typical workflow for an animation is as follows:

1) send prepass job to one render-node through backburner. Force a save of the irmap to a network location.
2) send render job to all nodes on network though backburner, with a job dependancy on the prepass job above. All frames are told to use the irmap which has been force-saved above

So, I may not even be in the office when part 2) begins, yet I need to have pointed part 2) to the correct irmap in order for it to render out corretly. My process was fine for 'incremental add', but this 'animation (prepass)' process creates many irmaps, one per frame. I therefore can't tell part 2) to use the irmap from the final frame as it will not yet have been calculated.

Have I explained this ok?

[Neilg]

Just put the rendering part on a lower priority - so long as the prepass stays 15 or so frames ahead of your rendering you'll be fine.

[tricky]

Yes, that probably is a good workaround. I'd rather get it working with dependancies though then I can gurantee jobs are complete without having to remember about priorities.

I certainly can't be the only one working like this?

[Neilg]

So long as one frame of your irradiance map is done you can set it up and send it off, dependancy or not.

Theres no point in using dependancies though, because if youve got 20 farm machines, 19 of them will be empty waiting for the last to finish when they may aswell start.